Shii News – Academic Items
1.UCLA Screening of Sloan Winner – JIN – A Kurdish film with themes of Jin Jiyan Azadi and Intersectionality– June 26th, 7-10 PM.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/jin-short-film-screening-tickets-1371989149479?aff=erelexpmlt
2. JSAI Volume 55 – Studies in Honour of Albert Arazi
We are pleased to announce the publication of volume 55 of Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam(JSAI). This peer-reviewed academic journal covers a range of subjects related to classical Islam, Islamic religious thought, Arabic language and literature, and the interaction between Islam and other civilizations. This honorary volume is presented to Albert Arazi of the Hebrew University and includes papers that highlight his diverse fields of academic interests.
As the flagship project of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation is dedicated to providing high-quality research and analysis on the subject of Islam and Arabic studies. We are proud to have published 55 volumes of JSAI to date and we are confident that the latest addition will be of great interest to academics and researchers worldwide.
We invite you to visit our website at https://jsai.huji.ac.il/publications to learn more about JSAI.
The Editors
Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation
Contact Email
URL
https://jsai.huji.ac.il/about-jsai-0
3. Columbia University – Lecturer/Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=68808
4. Join us for our first Digital Lab event in Scotland! The event takes place Wednesday 2-3 July 2025 in Edinburgh, Scotland, with an optional 4 July special excursion to Glasgow. Our focus is on the intersections of Islamic art, architecture, video games/XR, digital cultural heritage and museum collections. This event will bring together our local and international community members and anyone else who shares our interest in bridging academic, video games/entertainment/XR+, and cultural heritage sectors for positive social impact. We’ll combine brief talks with hands-on workshops, and plenty of time for meeting fellow members of the Digital Lab community, strengthening our international connections, and sharing exciting new projects.
2-3 July Digital Lab Days Edinburgh
Day 1 Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh
Bridging the academy and video games/entertainment/XR
Digital Technologies for Islamic Art History & Cultural Heritage
Hands-On Workshop for Digital Cultural Heritage
Day 2
AM: Spotlight on Islamic art, University of Edinburgh Heritage Collections
PM: Spotlight on Islamic art, National Museum Scotland with Friederike Voigt (Principal Curator, West, South & Southeast Asian collections, Head of Asia Section, Department of Global Arts, Cultures and Design)
Optional 4 July Digital Lab Days Glasgow Field Trip
Introduction to Museums in the Metaverse, ARC-XR Lab, University Glasgow
Islamic collections session, Glasgow Life Museums Resource Center with Aisha Asghar (Assistant Curator, World Cultures – Art)
Contact Information
Dr. Glaire Anderson
Founding Director, Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Cultures & Collections
Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art, School of History of Art/ECA
Affiliate, Edinburgh Futures Institute
University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Contact Email
URL
https://dlivcc.kit.com/profile/events
5. The Medieval Mediterranean between Islam and Christianity
Crosspollinations in Art, Architecture, and Material Culture
Edited by Sami Luigi De Giosa and Nikolaos Vryzidis
AUC Press, 2025
https://aucpress.com/9781649031877/
6. CFP: American Historical Review, Special Issue on Methods for Archival Silence in Early History, Sept. 16
The American Historical Review seeks proposals for a special issue illustrating a range of methodological approaches to archival silence developed by scholars of early history. Articles may be grounded in any part of the world and address any topic as long as they are method-driven, focused on archival silence, and situated early within the periodization of your field.
About the Issue
What should historians do when our sources do not tell us what we want to know? Although this may be a universal experience of historical research, the problem arises in various forms. Some silences are intentional, others unintentional. Some sources are minimal, others extensive but off-topic. Some sources are inaccessible, some have not been preserved, some were never created. Sometimes we do not or cannot know whether our desired sources ever existed, or, if they did, what happened to them. Silences cluster around certain topics, places, and periods more than others.
Historians have articulated this problem in a variety of ways. This call uses the language of archival silence and silencing developed by Michel-Rolph Trouillard and Marisa Fuentes. It could have drawn on the concept of the subaltern (Ranajit Guha, Gayatri Spivak), strategically produced silence and plausible stories (Natalie Zemon Davis), records designed for jettison (Marina Rustow), hidden transcripts (James Scott), living oral traditions (Bethwell A. Ogot), or writing off the radar (James Lockhart), to name only a few.
Faced with archival silence, historians have developed a range of methods for working in, through, and around it. Some techniques and approaches have become characteristic of expertise in early periods. Others are applied by historians across specializations. These include but are not limited to reading against the grain; creative combination of well-known sources; creative use of unusual or little-known sources; oral and other forms of non-written record; technical skills in the so-called ancillary disciplines (numismatics, paleography, codicology, epigraphy, and more); interdisciplinary approaches to method (anthropology, archaeology, literature, linguistics, and more) and to what constitutes a source (climate data, aDNA, physical objects, art, and more); critical fabulation or disciplined imagination; and reframing our questions to build on our sources’ strengths.
Submitting a Proposal
Proposals should be submitted via Google Form by September 16, 2025. Proposals should be no more than 800 words in length and should address the following questions:
- What is your field of historical research? In the context of your field, why is your project considered early?
- Briefly describe the archive(s) or bod(ies) of sources on which your project is based. In what sense are these sources silent?
- Briefly describe the method(s) that you use to work with these sources. What methodological intervention does your project make, and why is it significant?
- What form will your project take in the journal?
We invite projects in a wide variety of forms. They can include, but are not limited to:
- Traditional research articles (no more than 8,000 words, excluding footnotes)
- Image- or video-centered projects
- Digital history/humanities projects
- Public history projects or virtual exhibitions
- Pedagogical projects that examine approaches to methodology and archival silence in the classroom
Decisions on proposals will be announced in November 2025. A positive decision does not guarantee publication in the journal but is rather an invitation to submit a full and complete version of the proposed project for peer review. The submission deadline for complete projects for peer review is May 1, 2026. We anticipate publication of the special issue in 2027.
Please contact the special issue editor, Hannah Barker (hannah.barker.1@asu.edu), with questions.
Contact Information
Hannah Barker
Associate Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, Arizona State University
Contact Email
URL
https://www.historians.org/news-publications/american-historical-review/how-to-…
7. Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures
The Vernacular Millennium: Literary Cultures in History: International Multidisciplinary Workshop
19–20 June, University of Birmingham
Venue: G05, Institute of Advanced Studies(IAS), University of Birmingham, 54 Pritchatts Rd, Birmingham B15 2SA, UK
This hybrid workshop will discuss Sheldon Pollock’s book titled The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (University of California Press, 2009). Since its publication fifteen years ago, Pollock’s massive book has profoundly reshaped how cultural and literary historians, as well as philologists specialising in the broadest possible linguistic fields, think about the development of languages and the relationship between language and politics. Pollock focused on Sanskrit and its impact on vernacular literary languages in India, suggesting stages for how as a cosmopolitan literary idiom it gave way to local languages. He offered a framework that successfully moved historical models for the development of literary languages away from nationalist teleology, which sees the rise of ‘national languages’ as connected to ethnic identity and as an inevitable process. Since the appearance of the book, scholars have applied Pollock’s vision to their own field, creating new ways of thinking about literary history, philology, historical linguistics, etc., whether in the western hemisphere or the Global South. While some have agreed and others have disagreed with Pollock, problematising his model’s applicability in certain linguistic traditions, critical engagement with his model has proven remarkably fruitful, whether speaking about languages of the ancient Near East, Antiquity, Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. This has undoubtedly created new ways of talking about premodern global connectivities and the contingency of the linguistic – and by extension, also the cultural – makeup of the modern world. It is now time to take stock of this impact. The workshop will bring together specialists of diverse linguistic traditions – historians, philologists and linguists from the UK and international academia. The regional and linguistic specialisations of the invitees will include Indology, Iranian, Turkic, Arabic, English, Spanish and Latin Studies.
Those interested but unable to attend in person can participate via Zoom via the links included below.
Thursday, 19 June
https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83998767478?pwd=4iGaxo9gRCq0PsT4hAVBaKgWTsY7iS.1
Meeting ID: 839 9876 7478, Passcode: 430140
Welcome: 13:30-14:00 Soft opening
14:00-15:00 The Politics of Language in the Nile-to-Oxus Region
Ludwig Paul (University of Hamburg), “The Early History of New Persian”
Ferenc Csirkés (University of Birmingham), “Language Ideologies of Turkic in Premodern Iran”
Discussant: Leire Olabarria
15:00-15:45 Latinitas and Translation in the Medieval Christian West
Elena Caetano Alvarez (University of Birmingham), “Por aver remembrança”: Translation, Adaptation, and the Language of Empire in Alfonso X’s Historiography”
Discussant: Aengus Ward (University of Birmingham, Department of Modern Languages)
[15:45-16:15 Tea/ Coffee]
16:15-17:15 Cosmopolitan Multilingualism in the Early Modern and Modern West
Kamran Khan (University of Birmingham), “Language Citizenship Testing as Border Control”
Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary, University of London), “Beyond vernacularisation: The TextDiveGlobal project and the literary history of early modern Europe in the world”
Discussant: Jing Huang (University of Birmingham)
[18:30- Dinner – Syriana, Edgbaston]
Friday, 20 June
https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81404724181?pwd=XckGnlagv9spC5G1JvabwGeqAyPoDu.1
Meeting ID: 814 0472 4181
Passcode: 512641
09:15-10:15 Cosmopolitanism and Vernacular Traditions in India
Imre Bangha (University of Oxford), “Moving on from the Language of Gods: Revisiting the Emergence of Hindi”
Roy Fischel (SOAS, University of London), “Telling the Local to the World: Cosmopolitan and its Boundaries in the Persianate Deccan”
Discussant: Ferenc Csirkés
[10:15-10:30 Tea/Coffee]
10:30-11:30 Keynote
Nicholas Ostler (Foundation of Endangered Languages), “History of Language Succession”
11:30-13:00 [LUNCH, buffet brought in to accompany round table]
Roundtable, (and next steps?)
8. The Islamic College:
An Online Panel Discussion On: Religious Experience in Abrahamic Traditions
Date: Wednesday 25 June 2025
Time: 6.00 P.M. – 8.30 P.M. (LONDON TIME)
| A Short Account of the Talk:
Religious experience is described in some detail in the Hebrew Bible and yet is not emphasized on the whole in later forms of the religion. There are some Jewish traditions for which experience is significant, but for most Jews it is not so important, and is perhaps replaced by practices such as prayer and law, or a commitment to social justice. There will be a discussion of how and why this occurred, what are its implications and whether or not this presents the religion with a problem. Bio Oliver Leaman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky and a member of the Accademica Ambrosiana, Milan . He is the author and editor of books and articles in Islamic, Jewish and Asian philosophy and culture, and his most recent book is the Routledge Handbook of Jewish Ritual and Practice, 2022, which he edited.. He remains the editor of the Routledge Jewish Book Series, one of the largest English language academic series of publications. A Short Account of the Talk: The Nature and Significance of Religious Experience: An Islamic Perspective Religious experience in Islamic thought is a profound encounter that fosters spiritual transformation, ethical refinement, and divine proximity. Rooted in the Qur’an and Hadith, it encompasses prayer (salat), supplication (du’a), contemplation (tafakkur), and mystical awareness (ma‘rifah), each serving as a pathway to deeper connection with God (Allah). Bio Hujjat al-Islam Dr. Mohammad Ali Shomali is a distinguished Islamic scholar and philosopher. He studied at the Islamic Seminaries of Qum and also earned his BA and MA in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran and his doctorate in moral philosophy from the University of Manchester. He is the founding director of the Risalat International Institute, which focuses on Islamic curriculum development and educational training. Over the past 28 years, he has led seminars and courses in over 60 cities across four continents, contributing to Islamic education and interfaith dialogue. Dr. Shomali’s work in interfaith engagement has connected him with scholars and religious leaders in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. His publications include works on Islamic philosophy, ethics, and spirituality, such as Ethical Relativism, Self-Knowledge, Shi‘a Islam: Origins, Faith & Practices, and Lessons on Islamic Beliefs. Dr Shomali is co-editor of Catholics-Shi’a Dialogue volumes: A Short Account of the Talk: The Christian faith is born in religious experience: the miraculous birth of the Christ child, the many miracles of Jesus, his martyr death, his resurrection and ascension. Today the Christian life is often seen as beginning with the personal reception of a divine encounter with Jesus, called “conversion.” The topic of religious experience within Christianity takes many turns and the literature is rich with philosophers, psychologist, and theologians analyzing the authenticity, especially of the extraordinary accounts of such experiences. In his presentation, Professor Huebner will consider both the exceptional accounts of religious experiences as well as the “ordinary” ones. His main argument is “We could say that it is a religious experience whenever there is a “meeting” of the divine and the human. Or, whenever we receive an act in this world as divine.” Bio Harry Huebner is Professor Emeritus of philosophy and theology at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Canada. In the past few decades, he has been active in interfaith dialogue and teaching. He is the author of several books, his latest being An Introduction to Christian Ethics: History, Movements, People. |
https://islamic-college.ac.uk/event-register/
9. Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War is now available through Stanford University Press.
Ami Mousavi deals with the ways in which Iranian and Iraqi writers have dealt with the legacy of the war between their two countries in contemporary Persian and Arabic fiction.
https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/dust-never-settles
If you’re inclined to purchase one, you can get a 20% discount from SUP by using the code MOOSAVI20.
https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/dust-never-settles
10. Digital Methodologies for the Study of Religion Symposium
Wednesday 25th June
Coventry University
9.30am-4.15pm
This knowledge exchange symposium is part of the ESRC-funded Digital British Islam research project. Hosted by Coventry University, it will bring together scholars to critically engage with the uses, challenges, and future directions of digital methodologies for the study of religion. The draft programme for the symposium is available on here: https://digitalbritishislam.com/draft-symposium-programme/
Registration is free and includes access to all conference sessions, lunch, refreshments, and networking opportunities. Please note, we are not able to cover travel expenses on this occasion.
Please register on this link as soon as possible: https://digitalbritishislam.com/symposium-registration/
Places are very limited and registration will closed once full or on Wednesday 18th June.
11. IED lecture – 23/6 – Thijl Sunier ‘Making Islam work: Islamic Authority among Muslims in Western Europe’
Thijl Sunnier (VU Amsterdam) will close this first online lecture series with a talk on his latest book ‘‘Making Islam Work: Islamic Authority Among Muslims in Western Europe”.
Date: Monday, June 23rd, 3.00-4.30 pm CET
Registration link: click here to register and save your Teams access link
After his presentation, discussant Dominik Müller (Zürich University) will offer a response, followed by a Q&A
Abstract
Thijl Sunier: ‘‘Making Islam Work: Islamic Authority Among Muslims in Western Europe”.
Who speaks for Islam? Religious authority hinges on persuasiveness and addresses issues of truthfulness, authenticity, legitimacy, trust, and ethics within the realm of religious matters.
While Islamic authority may seem like an inherent status for Muslim scholars, tied to their knowledge of religious sources, Sunier argues that the process of establishing Islamic authority is a continuous dynamic.
His book Making Islam Work: Islamic Authority Among Muslims in Western Europe (Brill) analyses authority as a social and relational practice that extends beyond theological proficiency and personal status, even encompassing objects, activities, and events. Moreover, he contends that the development of Islamic landscapes in Europe is intricately linked to the evolution of Islamic authority.
In this talk, he will explore the diverse ways in which Islamic authority is constituted, with a specific emphasis on the role of ‘ordinary’ Muslims. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among Muslims in Western Europe from the mid-1980s to 2020, he aims to shed light on the multifaceted dynamics of Islamic authority in this context.
Thijl Sunier is professor emeritus (VU University Amsterdam) and president of the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS). His work focuses on the study of migrants in Europe, Turkey and the study of Islamic religious authority
Looking forward to seeing you there!
IED team (An Van Raemdonck, Iman Lechkar, Dominik Müller, Nadia Fadil, Aymon Kreil).
12. Nemati Book Award For Studies on Iran’s Minoritized Ethnic and Religious Communities
The Nemati Book Award honors exceptional monographs on Iran’s minoritized ethnic and religious groups. Established in memory of Mrs. Nemati [from Kermanshah in Iran], the award supports inclusive, interdisciplinary scholarship. The UNC-Chapel Hill Persian Studies Program administers this award in collaboration with the Association for Iranian Studies (AIS).
Prize: $1,000 (awarded biennially)
Eligibility: Books published in the past two years (January 1, 2024- December 31, 2025)
Focus: Communities such as Armenian, Assyrian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Bahá’í, Kurdish, Baluch, Yarsan, and others
Submission: Authors or publishers may submit a digital copy of the book, a nomination letter by authors/publishers, and a CV by January 31, 2026, to yaghoobi@email.unc.edu
13. Hedayat on Religion
Edited by M.R. Ghanoonparvar and Paul Sprachman
Contributors: Iraj Bashiri, Michael Beard, M. Mehdi Khorrami, Nasrin Rahimieh
Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2024.
https://www.mazdapublishers.com/book/hedayat-on-religion
14. The team of the UKRI-funded project Musical Lives: Towards an Historical Anthropology of French Song, 1100-1300 (MUSLIVE) invites expressions of interest from researchers at an early career stage (broadly conceived and inclusive of current PhD students) to participate in a workshop on 17th-18thSeptember at King’s College London.
Our intention is to bring together researchers whose work intersects with the project’s interests in the lives of poets or songmakers who lived in or travelled the Mediterranean, or whose work can be positioned within trans-Mediterranean cultural networks, in the period 1100 to 1300. We take a capacious view of “musical lives” to include all forms of performed speech, with or without melody. We welcome contributions which focus on Arabic, Hebrew, Latin or European vernacular poetic traditions (particularly medieval French and Occitan).
In lieu of a traditional conference paper, we will ask participants to present a primary source, be that an object, text (or extract of a longer text), or document, linked to the project’s core themes and timeframe. Prior to the workshop, participants will submit their object/source for distribution in advance (with English translation provided), along with a short contextual statement about it, some research questions you are working on, and how it might relate to MUSLIVE’s core themes (for example, how it contributes to building a musical life and/or network.) In the workshop, each participant will offer an informal introduction to their item for a maximum of 5 minutes, with ample room afterwards for generative and open-ended conversation in a convivial and supportive atmosphere.
We conceive of the workshop as the first step in an ongoing collaboration through which participants will have the opportunity to develop a chapter for submission to one of the project’s edited volumes. The workshop will be an in-person event, though we anticipate further workshops will be online and/or hybrid.
We ask potential participants to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words outlining their chosen source and their approach to it, along with a short CV. Please submit your materials by June 30th to muslive@kcl.ac.uk and feel free to contact us on that address with any questions.
The project is able to offer a number of bursaries to support travel and accommodation costs, with priority given to those who do not have access to institutional or other funding. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a bursary when submitting your abstract.
MUSLIVE is a UKRI Frontier Research Grant, running 2023-2028. It was successfully evaluated by the ERC and funded by the UKRI Horizon Europe guarantee (EP/X022501/1). For more information about the project themes, see: https://muslive.kcl.ac.uk
Best wishes,
The MUSLIVE team
15. New Online Course: The Shahname: Introduction to the Iranian Epic
July 11 – August 29, 2025
Ferdowsi School of Persian Literature
https://ferdowsi.org/the-shahname-introduction-2/
16. HYBRID Lecture Reconstructing the Higher Thought of Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī (d.548/1153): Eclecticism or Intellectual Synthesis ?
by Dr. Toby Mayer (Institute of Ismaili Studies, London), INALCO, Paris, 16 June 2025, 18:15 – _20:00 CET
Information and registration: https://tinyurl.com/2nu8pphy
17. “7th International Conference of the Mediterranean Maritime History Network”, University of Zadar, Croatia, 25-26 May 2026
Main themes: – _On the sea (seamen, ships, navigation, sea trade, war, piracy). – _Around the sea (maritime communities, islands, port cities, shipping, shipping-related, fishing and touristic businesses). In the sea (fishing, maritime resources, environment). – _Because of the sea (maritime transport systems and entrepreneurial networks, maritime empires, international and national maritime institutions and policy). – _About the sea (the maritime culture and heritage).
Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2025. Information: https://conference.unizd.hr/mmhn2026/
18. Postdoctoral University Assistant (up to 6 Years) in Ottoman/Turkish Studies, University of Vienna
Qualification: Ph.D in Ottoman/Turkish Studies. – _Habilitation project in historical migration research focusing on Turkey. – _Research interests: migration history, minorities, spatial studies. – _Professional and methodological expertise in Ottoman/Turkish and European history, cultural theory, and digital humanities (DH). – _Excellent command of English, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish. – _Very good knowledge of Greek, Hebrew or Ladino.
Deadline for applications: 15 July 2025.
Information: https://jobs.univie.ac.at/job/University-Assistant-postdoctoral/1212816901/
19. Chapters on “The Aesthetics of Monotheism: Islam & the Hermeneutics of Art and Architecture” for Edited Volume of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar
The book explores theoretical and practical methods in historiography to examine the aesthetic foundations of Islamic art and architecture. It aims to build a framework grounded in Islamic aesthetics, critique orientalist perspectives, and expand understanding beyond architecture to include poetry, ornament, and music.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 July 2025. Information: Contact Ms. Rayan Khalil (rkhalil@hbku.edu.qa )
Posted in: Academic items
- June 14, 2025
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